A Medical Journey, Pt. 4
Three weeks after the hysteroscopy fiasco, I finally got into an MRI. So much “life” happened between these two events but, much of it was obscured by bogeymen in my mind. All I could think about was the timeline of pending events — pre-operative appointments June 16th, surgery June 17th, post-operative appointments June 24th. I can’t point to when the fixation shifted, but I do know that the “post” in “post-operative” appeared to be a far and distant concept. After all, who amongst us is equipped to say I will make it out of the procedure with 100% certainty?
That’s when the will drafting and estate planning began.
With just about two weeks before the myomectomy, I had to orient myself to a few facts about my family and community:
1) We are never ready for emergencies.
2) Emergencies — in my community, especially — are expensive and preventative.
So many unfortunate memories came flooding back, most recently one of my cousin Sharon who passed abruptly but had nothing written anywhere. When I say “nothing”, I mean that there was no will, no instructions to handle her estate, no additional names on the deed to her home, no accounts labeled Payable on Death — nothing. Members of my family sent good money after bad trying to organize her affairs after she passed.
Then, of course, I thought of my mother and the bitter fighting — and so many court dates — that followed her death. I thought about how normal things were for everyone around me, especially in school, and how none of them knew about the ways my family was betrayed. There were people living in our house and driving my mother’s car and taking things of hers that were precious to me — like her sorority line jacket — all because of their own feelings of entitlement to her life. They contested her will and that led to hell for my family.
How could I create something airtight in two weeks?
Well, it wouldn’t be airtight. But, at the very least, it could be self-proving. So, with a stroke of acquaintanceship, I engaged the notarial services of my husband’s former co-worker and two of our dear friends in Albuquerque as witnesses to ensure that I at least had something written down. It was weird and unsettling to write such a finite document distributing my things. Then, I consistently returned to the thought: “you don’t know when you’re going to die — but you do know that you’re going to die.” It saddened me that the time might be around the corner but, it didn’t matter much as long as my family would be taken care of and my desire for cremation was written down.
Even now, I am writing this blog post as though I will come out on the other side of this June 18th or 19th in the year of our Lord and Savior 2022, prepared to give you updates post-surgery, silently acknowledging that may not ever happen. But at least I wrote it down. At least there’s something concrete on paper with my signature and fingerprints and proof of my expectations.
After all the documentation was organized, I tried to enjoy the relative silence — until my grandmother wound up in the hospital and was held there overnight. At 88 years old, she still has a firm superstition and unshaking fear of medical offices. She would never let anyone in on the anxiety she has around doctors — specifically in hospitals. But she’s terrified of them.
This, I imagine, is epigenetic, an unmarkable trait in my makeup.
For my grandmother, hospitals are places of extreme loss. Her husband died in a hospital when my mother was finishing her freshman year in college. Her father died in a hospital after complications to a simple illness. Her mother died in a hospital abruptly; even though I was fifteen, I still don’t know what happened to my Grandma Mack. Her daughter, her only child — my mother — died in a hospital from an aggressive cancer that metastasized from her breast to her spine to behind her eyes and, eventually her brain. It is unsurprising, then, that she behaved like a bull in a China shop because they held her overnight. When I called her cell phone and she didn’t answer, I was, admittedly, alarmed. I knew she was in hospital, but she always answers when I call. They told me she was away getting tests done when I finally reached the nurses’ station. “I’ll let her know to call you as soon as she gets back.” That, of course, never happened and, an hour and a half later, she finally answered her phone when I called back. She was testy, impatient, frustrated my brother did what I asked of him when he inquired about in-home nursing and hospice care. She was upset, he was upset, and I was quiet.
Why can’t this be easy? Why can’t she let them take care of her since I can’t?
That’s the crux of it, there. Since I can’t. Since mom can’t. Since there isn’t anyone else available to completely stop their lives and attend to her the way my mother would have had she survived to this time. She would be 60–61 by the end of 2022 — likely retired — available. My mother would happily split her time between New Jersey and New Mexico to care for her mother and child, watching her second and youngest child thrive in college. It can’t be easy because she isn’t here. It can’t be easy because it wasn’t designed that way — not for us, not for our family. We were determined for a different path — a different model to the “typical” nuclear family.
I cried some more, lamenting, again, the loss that I thought I had a grip on, annoyed by all the videos on social media with generations of women dancing together, laughing together, being whole and complete and supporting one another.
Why am I getting this procedure?
Because all I have ever wanted — and all I continue to want — is what I couldn’t enjoy from the time I was thirteen and my mother experienced her first campaign against breast cancer. I am so raw from it, still feel so robbed by it, so very, very, angry. A middle schooler should never have to change bandages and empty surgical drains, but I did — and I did it happily at the time. I prided myself on the fact my mom never had to wait, that I had a schedule, that I spent my summer after middle school putting her back together. I just wish I knew then what it would mean that my mother chose a lumpectomy because she wanted to retain her “womanhood”, that a mastectomy would have saved her then and there but her fear of the perceptions of men kept her ill. It still angers me that she was made to be so insecure in this world that she would risk her health.
I start to wonder if I am any different to her in my pursuit of a myomectomy. A hysterectomy would resolve this — no more fibroids, no more menstrual cramping, no hot flashes, no menopause. Grandma and I made a deal that if anything like breast cancer ever appeared in either of us, there would be no muss, no fuss — we would cut off our busts! But when the fibroids appeared, she said, “well, you can’t have a hysterectomy — it’s too soon.” It is, indeed, too soon for a hysterectomy. I think of all the women in my family I have already spoken to about this, the ones who have had a myomectomy or hysterectomy or a history of fibroids. I think of my tía Carmen and aunt Jacqué reminding me there is more than one way to be a mother. I think of Estelí and the ancient, detailed medical illustrations of Cesarean procedures she saw in Mexico, predating modern gynecology and validating additional birthing practices. I think of my family — the family I want with my husband, three or four curly headed, brown skinned children running around with me in a garden behind our home with an acre or three of exploring to do.
I think, I can’t die yet.
During my walk, I call Lyrric to wish her a happy birthday and notice a butterfly follow me through the neighborhood — passing me once heading down the street, once more on the return, and greeting me at the tree in my front yard. Again, I want to cry, to acknowledge the symbol somehow, but I resist the urge. I am so scared, feeling so far from God. There’s work to do — there’s always work to do — but I curl up and watch television anyway. The hospital calls to give me instructions and ask the same check-in questions I completed electronically, offering additional instruction on how to bathe and when to stop eating. I do my best to listen, to repeat the information back to my husband in voice memos. The university sends me my final paperwork. I play with my dog, Toast, and she doesn’t leave my side, even when I’m balled up in a blanket on the floor. I tell God I am sorry for being so far away and hope he’s listening long enough to forgive me. I finish writing instructions how to delete my social media accounts and other important passwords. My neighbor blasts “The Real Slim Shady.”
I can’t die yet.
